Duelling Under The Moon
by ginevra85
Summary: After they cross the river and before they fall asleep, Edmund and Lucy share a moment of peace... or something like that! Movieverse.


A.N.: I love me some badass Ed and Lu! In my opinion there's never enough of it. I remember reading in 'The Horse and His Boy' of how Queen Lucy was "as good as a man" in battle and in the movie we don't really see it, only how her childish body kind of betrays her when she fights against Nikabrik. So without further ado, I give you Lucy and Edmund playing with swords!

Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia-Prince Caspian is property of C.S. Lewis, Walden and Disney. I only really love the younger Pevensies and wish to spread this love to everybody!

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"Why are you crying, Lu?"

Lucy gasped and turned around, drying her tears with her cloak. Edmund smiled gently and sat on the grass of the clearing, gesturing to a spot next to himself. Lucy sighed and went to sit with her brother.

"Are they still arguing about the fire?" She asked tiredly. Edmund snorted.

"Does it surprise you?" He sounded angry.

"Not really."

There was a moment of silence, then Lucy spoke again:

"Peter isn't the only one who was an adult and went back to being a child, you know!"

Edmund sighed and touched her cheek gently.

"I know, believe me. I think Peter forgot, though. Or maybe he thinks that, because we don't whine and act like brats, we don't mind having to go through puberty again."

Lucy laughed gently at his words, then put her head on his shoulder.

"Why did you follow me?"

"Because you needed me. And because I needed a break. I think Su can manage those two for a bit."

As if on cue, Susan's exasperated cry for them to be silent carried from the clearing. Lucy laughed half-heartedly. Edmund frowned; he hated to see his sister so sad. Looking down on her head, he spied her hand playing with the dagger on her belt and he had an idea.

"Lu, do you think you could sneak Rhindon while Peter is busy arguing with the DLF?"

As intended, Lucy's eyes sparkled and she ran towards the camp. Edmund followed her to see how she'd manage such a feat; Peter never left Rhindon unattended for long. As expected, Peter was still arguing with Trumpkin, while a tired Susan was gathering wood for the fire, and the sword rested next to Peter and Edmund's bags. The younger Pevensie boy was astonished by his little sister's sneakiness. Lucy had managed to get to the bags without making the faintest sound. Now she had to take the sword at the exact moment Peter's back was turned.

Edmund was really surprised. Lucy was much older the last time she had conquered such control on her body to be able to move like a cat. When she was in front of him again, he looked at her with his mouth agape so long, that they risked ruining their feat because of Lucy's giggling. They got back to the small clearing where they had been sitting before and Edmund couldn't keep silent anymore.

"Lu! That was incredible! When have you been training? You were seventeen the last time you were able to do something like that!"

Lucy laughed at her brother's awed face.

"I seem to have a much higher control of my body this time around. Maybe it still remembers what it could do when I was older. You're right, though, I've been training, anywhere and anytime I've been able to, since the day after we came back."

Her brother shook his head, admiring her spirit, and unbuckled the belt with his sword, passing it to Lucy and taking Rhindon, much too big for her, from her hands. She took off the belt with the cordial and her dagger and unsheathed Edmund's sword, recognizing its familiar weight from all the times he had let her use it. They did a couple solo routines to get the sense of the borrowed swords, then faced each other and saluted with the gleaming weapons, ready to duel. Lucy smirked, looking suddenly much older than her supposed nine years of age. They both got in position.

"I'm going to smash you Ed!"

Edmund mock-sighed, already resigned.

"You probably are… Doesn't mean I'm not going to give it my all!"

And he attacked.

He still fought like his centaur teacher had shown him – she like the Dryad who trained her. A couple of still perfectly working war machines, only too young, too small and, mostly in the girl's case, too weak. Attack, parry, evade, follow, jump, and twist. Again and again. They moved like a song under the moon, still fast and fluid, as if they'd never left Narnia at all. For the first time since they found themselves here, they felt free and powerful. They felt like King Edmund the Just and Queen Lucy the Valiant. They remembered all the battles they had fought back to back, "like two little Narnian terrors", as Peter used to say. Their enemies feared them deeply, the dark king who fought with two swords and the golden queen, fast and beautiful like a cheetah, who never strayed far from him. They revelled in the fight, flourished in each other's company. Their subjects had always loved to see them like this, fighting each other, playing a game dangerous and exciting, safe in the knowledge that the other would never hurt them, so much so that they sneaked around the training arena to watch them during the morning lessons. Lucy rarely noticed, always too absorbed in the exercise, but Edmund always sensed them, their awe for their sovereigns and their enjoyment of the good fight.

Not this time, though. This time they both noticed their siblings and the DLF as they approached, despite their attempt to be inconspicuous. Edmund and Lucy looked in each other's eyes with a smirk and upped their game, going faster, harder. From an outsider's point of view their game looked dangerous and strange, considering their age. The truth was they were deliberately trying to be provocative, to see how blind and stubborn Peter was going to be.

Susan's worried gasp and Peter's startled "Oh!" they expected. It was Trumpkin's total silence that made them stop, swords locked, faces merely a breath apart. Lucy couldn't stop the elated giggle that sounded terribly out of place, seeing what she had been doing. That was what got Edmund going, a snort escaping without his permission. The two younger Pevensies checked and cleaned their blades and put them back in their sheaths. Then they put their belts back on and Lucy handed Peter his sword back with a simple "Thanks!". The High King sighed and went back to the camp, speechless.

"You should be more careful. You could have been hurt." Susan was almost frantic. Edmund raised an eyebrow and deadpanned,

"Really". The sarcasm was extremely evident in his voice. Lucy shook her head and said, almost haughtily,

"Maybe you ought to follow our royal brother, sister mine." She was clearly unhappy with her, seeing it wasn't Susan the one who fought more battles between the two of them.

Susan caught Lucy's displeased tone and veiled barb and followed Peter, to make sure he wasn't too shocked. She had an inkling that she wasn't the only one who had forgotten about the two's reckless duelling style. Trumpkin was the only one who didn't leave and when Lucy and Edmund went back to their previous position, sitting on the grass, he sat in front of them, still silent.

After a good five minutes had gone by in stillness, and after Lucy went back to her comfortable position on Edmund's shoulder, with his arm around her, the two children had enough.

"If you have something to say, good Master Dwarf, now it's the time to say it. I'm going to be sleepy very soon…" Edmund's words were confirmed by Lucy's yawn.

"I think I have underestimated you." Trumpkin finally said. "Again." He added, looking at Edmund.

"It's understandable, really." Lucy said with a smile. "You see only the child on the outside. You've never known the adult inside. It's no offence. We're honestly angrier with our siblings. Their opinions should be more informed than yours; after all, they were there."

"It must be difficult for you, having to go back through your life again."

"It's no big deal, most of the time. In the world where we come from, at least." Here Trumpkin looked confused, but Lucy went on speaking. "The only real problem is that here my body isn't as strong as I remember it. I cannot do everything I was used to. If it comes down to battle, I probably won't be able to fight with my siblings. Susan will have to." Edmund hummed in confirmation. The Dwarf was confused.

"Isn't Queen Susan used to fighting? I have seen her use that bow of hers. She was outstanding."

"My sister was called 'the Gentle' for a reason, dear friend. She preferred to stay away from the battlefield, unless strictly necessary. She was the one who stayed at the Cair to take care of the reign, when we rode to war."

The poor Narnian looked stunned. Lucy's words gave him probably more information than anyone at the present time had about the Kings and Queens of Old.

"So that's why you were called 'Valiant'?"

"I think that's why. In part, at least."

Edmund snorted and squeezed her arm.

"They should have called you 'the Fury'! Honestly, in the field you looked like some sort of Amazon."

Lucy smiled and blushed at the praise. Trumpkin frowned; he probably didn't know what an Amazon was. He decided to leave the issue alone, though, in order to ask something else.

"So why were you called 'the Just King'?"

"Do you know our story, Master Trumpkin?"

"I do, Majesty."

"Then you know I was a traitor." The Dwarf gasped, hearing the boy use such harsh words on himself. Lucy stiffened. "It's the truth, even if sometimes I wish it wasn't. Only sometimes, though. After all, if I hadn't been such a beastly brother, Aslan wouldn't have conquered death, sacrificing Himself because He loved me. I wouldn't have known what justice tempered with mercy is, and it probably would have made me a terrible judge, don't you think? Who can know justice better than one who was at fault and was forgiven? It's not an easy task, friend, to decide whether one deserves a second chance, or their crime is too terrible to offer forgiveness."

"You were but a youngling, my King!" Trumpkin sounded outraged. Edmund smiled gently, Lucy's arms tight around his waist.

"It may be so, and it might be the reason why I was so promptly forgiven. But... these are my sisters and my brother I betrayed! What kind of brother does something like that?"

Lucy made a sound of protest then, straightening herself and facing her brother, grabbing his jaw in her small hands. Her voice came out sad, but forceful:

"Edmund Pevensie! You will stop this instant with this nonsense! After all these years, you still think of yourself like that? After all the tears and the blood you spilled for this beloved country? After all the times you took care of us, of all three of us – all the nights you held me when I was scared, all the times you had our backs, all the hours of study you suffered through to be the best King anyone could be? I won't listen while you disparage yourself and demean your work!"

Edmund, touched by her words, smiled gently, collecting her hands in his and brushing a kiss on her knuckles. Then he caressed softly her hair, looking briefly at the Dwarf before he fixed his eyes firmly in his sister's.

"I'm proud of everything I did as King of Narnia. Nobody with a title like mine would be less than that. My people thought me a just man, despite my less than stellar beginnings here. I swear to you, on Aslan's mighty paws, I forgave myself years ago. I promise. But I am happy to carry the weight of memories and to bear the scars, if it means I stay forever the person I was last year. I was the best version of myself I could be, but getting back in this body... It brought back things forgotten, and with them the knowledge that I was but an instrument in His greatest Plan. Lucy, you know as well as I do that there's nothing greater than being His. So if my suffering and my repenting served a higher purpose, I can only wish I could have suffered more."

Trumpkin's gaze was directed to the ground, something he didn't quite comprehend tightening his throat. Lucy's bright blue gaze was shining with tears, a song of thanks filling her heart, for such a brother as hers. He had grown so much, they both had to, more than their siblings they had to lose a bit of childhood to be worthy of a country like Narnia. And how they had loved her – with all their hearts. They still did, hope never leaving their soul that one day they would come back. Such is faith.

They went to sleep shortly after, with a new understanding of each other and, in the case of a certain Dwarf, with a lot more respect for this strange pair of adult children who made Narnia a happy place, so many years ago.


End file.
